Winning ugly

I said yesterday that I voted Liberal, Cathy voted NDP. Neither one of us cared for the Conservatives, but we differed on who to vote for in opposing them. And it looks like a lot of people in Nunavut did that as well. If you wanted a clearer cut case of vote splitting, you'd be hard pressed to beat Nunavut. The Conservatives polled 34.8 per cent of the vote, the Liberals 29.2 per cent and the NDP 27.6 per cent. Oh yeah, and the Greens got 8.4 per cent of the vote. They finished last, but at least didn't have the humiliation of having the Marijuana Party finish ahead of them, like they did in the 2006 election.

Oh yes, and the voter turnout was 49.4 per cent, down about five per cent from 2006. There were 8,068 voters who showed up to the polls out of the 16,350 eligible to do so. Now, some of that might have had to do with rackets regarding voter identification. We didn't have any problems, but I certainly heard of people having to run home and grab a bill or something with their mailing address on it to prove they were who they said they were to Elections Canada officials. But I suspect there was a solid dose of apathy tossed into the mix for good measure.

Someone can do some digging around on this, but I'm pretty sure that Leona Aglukkaq polled the fewest number of votes to win a federal seat, getting a whopping 2,806. The combination of only 16,350 eligible voters combined with an anemic 49 per cent voter turnout certainly helped. But so did nearly two-thirds of the people of Nunavut voting against her. So, pathetically low number of votes and an ugly winning percentage.

Yes, somebody has to win and this isn't sour grapes that the person I voted for lost. But this is almost the very definition of winning ugly. But I guess a win is a win. Now we'll have to wait and see what Aglukkaq and the Conservatives do with it. There were lots of big promises made to the north if a Conservative won in Nunavut for Harper. Let's see if they get delivered.

Last Five
1. Knockin' on heaven's door - Bob Dylan*
2. The barricades of heaven (live) - Jackson Browne
3. Don't let the man get you down - Fatboy Slim
4. Past the mission - Tori Amos
5. Man with no country - Flogging Molly